Books, arts and culture

Art Basel Miami Beach

The art of observation

“THE creative act is not performed by the artist alone," Marcel Duchamp famously observed. He understood that spectators are essential for the way they bring "the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications". In this slideshow below, we capture the relationship between art and its appreciators at Art Basel Miami Beach earlier this month. The American tropical sister to Art Basel in Switzerland has showcased the world's finest artistic creations for a decade now. This year the festival drew more attendees than ever before, as 50,000 people flooded the convention centre in five days, breaking all estimates and records. As the art world elite brushed shoulders with gallery owners, students and socialites, we sought to capture the often playful, symbiotic relationship between art and its audience.

Visitors crowded around a delicate mobile by Elias Crespin at the Gallery of Cecilia de Torres booth

Source: Photographs by Faith-Ann Young

A wall installation by Rashid Rana, a Pakistani artist, at the Chemould Prescott Road Gallery booth

A man dressed like he belongs in the painting stares at Eric Fischl's "Saint Barts Ralphs 70th" in the Mary Boone Gallery booth

“THE creative act is not performed by the artist alone," Marcel Duchamp famously observed. He understood that spectators are essential for the way they bring "the work in contact with the external world...

One of the avant garde and outrageous successful piece of the Artist Marcel Duchamp, was displaying a porcelain men's room urinal-- unmodified--set on a pedestal as a piece of art that he entitled "The Fountain."

If human interaction of the observer is part of the piece, the natural response is to urinate in it....It may be the only and best response to this great piece of modern art.